§ James Jean Masters of the Universe figures. 

I said JAMES JEAN MASTERS OF THE UNIVESE FIGURES. 

I SAID

James Jean, one of our  greatest living artists, has designed a MOTU two-pack of HeMan and Skeletor. What else do you need to know? That’s it. Mic drop. But, actually, Jean has always been a MOTU fan:

“This project is a return to my origins,” Jean says. The Masters of the Universe animation and comics he enjoyed in his younger years became the spark of his illustrative practice. This collaboration, in partnership with Mattel Creations, is a match made in Eternia.

He even made a reel about it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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If anyone from Mattel or James Jean is reading this…Stately Beat Manor needs these figures. 

Humans rule. 

§ It’s been a while since I Kibbled and bitted….but so much has happened. So much I need to tell you. Here is some of it…think of it as a mood board trying to make sense of this crazy world. 

§ Score another one for the humans. Netflix neglected to sign the KPop Demon Hunters creative team up for a sequel, Puck reports. So Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans can pretty much write their own paycheck: 

Without options for a sequel, Kang and Appelhans held extraordinary leverage. In fact, Sony first attempted to negotiate a follow-up deal with them, but the numbers were so big, and Netflix wanted them to be involved in the overall franchise, which Netflix controls, so the streamer took over the deal. And last fall, the duo seriously considered bailing during the heated negotiation, I’m told. (Kang, who originated the KPop story and co-wrote the film with Appelhans, Danya Jimenez, and Hannah McMechan, had offers to write and direct other projects.)

But after a months-long process, in which Netflix’s Lin was joined by animation head Hannah Minghella, with an assist from content chief Bela Bajaria, the filmmaker duo scored deals that are pretty unique for Netflix. It certainly helped that during the negotiation, the movie kept getting bigger and bigger on the service, as did the Oscar buzz and overall merch deals. (So much so that Netflix is currently looking for an executive to join its franchise management team and specifically oversee KPop Demon Hunters.)

Although the sequel will not appear until 2029 or 2030, Kang and Appelhans will get about $10 million a year until then and get a cut of the merch, including licensing. Considering that KPDH toys pretty much saved the industry, this will be piles and piles of human monies. They won’t get a cut of the music from the first film – that was a separate deal – but they will for the sequel. 

And what about that 3-4 year gap? Puck’s Matthew Belloni points out that “Six years elapsed between Frozen and its sequel. Moana 2 took eight years. Both sequels outperformed their originals in theaters.” Today’s Golden tweeners will be surly teens when the sequel arrives, but kids will be streaming it for years. Kiddie fare is remarkably durable. 

§ Speaking of the kiddies, Atom Freeman wrote a piece over on LinkedIn that’s kind of his own mood board for these days, The Dogman Generation.

Now. Right now is the best time there has ever been since 1938 to start a business in the comics industry. 

Why? Because in 2005 Scholastic published Bone and that opened the door, he says. 

This segment of Generation Z spoke comics natively. They understood technology like no generation before and refused the brands that were common for their parents and grandparents. There was never a stigma for them and their families attached to reading comics and graphic novels. Which was great for them because there was a WORLD of Japanese manga and anime for them to discover. This new generation burned through the hundreds of volumes of manga like Chainsaw Man, My Hero Academia, and One Piece.

More specifically, this Dog Man Generation segment of Gen Z (the center of that cohort) born between 2004 and 2008 are entering the job market. They are becoming the primary tastemakers. And this generation was seen by DC Comics and writer Scott Snyder.

I’ve always optimistically subscribed to the theory that Dog Man/One Piece readers would graduate to other kinds of comics, although secretly I knew that it was much less likely in the case of One Piece readers. But the Smith/Telgemeier/Pilkey tide came in and all the boats are setting off on a sunset cruise. 

I do wonder if there is any actual data that backs up this transition? I mean it is just common sense. Dog Man is one of the best selling kids book series of the century so probably most Absolute Batman readers read it when they were younger. Dog Man to Batman is the it really happened Underpants Gnome plan in action. I’ve never seen step two actually analyzed. It was a hell of a step two. And as we all know, step three has been PROFIT. 

§ While on the topic of youth culture, Wednesdays Spider-Man Brand New Day trailer was the most watched trailer in history, with 718.6 million views in 24 hours.

The Spidey trailer broke the previous record held by “Deadpool and Wolverine,” which had 365 million views. In just eight hours, the “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” trailer had 373 million views — already breaking the record by “Deadpool 3,” which dropped during the 2024 Super Bowl. Coincidentally, “Deadpool 3” had jumped the 2021 “Spider-Man: No Way Home” trailer, which had 355.5 million views in 24 hours, to put itself in the record books.

Throw in the meme-ability and buzz around the Dune 3 Trailer, and Zendaya is the biggest movie star of the year! 

As for the trailer itself…instead of Steve Ditko’s Spidey we’re getting the Ross Andru Spidey, and Jon Bernthal as Punisher is just the fllavor profile we needed. 

§ Part of the frustration over living in the current hellscape is all this AI shit being shoved down our throats. Yes, yes, we all want a computer slave to do our coding and tell us how to boil water. We just don’t want it to take our jobs! And we all KNOW that it isn’t actually doing all the things people whoa re spending billions of dollar on it say it will do. Very simple. And a previous tech start-up that received the throat shoving treatment that we all knew would fail has just….failed. Meta/Facebook’s Metaverse, a virtual reality platform that they invested a mere $70-80 billion into, is shutting down after laying off 10% of its workforce and failing to attract more than a couple hundred thousand users a month. 

Meta announced Tuesday that it is shutting down Horizon Worlds, the virtual reality social network for Quest VR headsets that was once a key piece of the pivot to the metaverse.

In a community blog, Meta announced that the Horizon Worlds app will be taken off the Quest store at the end of March, and fully removed from VR on June 15. After that date, it will only be available on a standalone mobile app.

The Metaverse was once Mark Zuckerberg’s special baby, with pr ops of him wearing a helmet and predicting we’d all be meeting there.  Facebook the parent company even changed its name to Meta. But nobody wanted it. 

Even after Meta lost roughly $80 billion on its endeavor, the metaverse and virtual reality remain niche interests among hobbyists and some businesses. Other digital worlds, like Roblox and Fortnite, became more popular.

Instead, Meta has gone all in on artificial intelligence. Last year, Zuckerberg proclaimed — again — a new future, this one centered on “superintelligence,” a form of godlike AI that can be the ultimate personal companion. His company has forecast spending at least $115 billion this year, primarily on AI, including on the construction of vast data centers to power the technology.

And there you have it. From VR to AI! As long as it’s only two letters.  Tech oligarch worth billions who obviously has no idea what the common people do every day to amuse themselves has pivoted from one billion dollar pipe dream to another….and we just have to go along with it or lose all our family photos. 

If Zuck had actually listened to anyone who studied VR, he would have known that the technology always stalls out at a certain point. The headset is heavy and clumsy. VR can make you nauseous or give you a headache. And most importantly…the real thing feels better. 

And speaking of the real thing…

§ Boys love has finally gone mainstream with Heated Rivalry. Did your AI/VR predict that two hockey players having passionate sexual encounters would drive fan girls crazy? I think it did not. Over at Vulture E. Alex Jung examined the phenomenon in a piece called Girls Who Love Boys Who Love Boys, and this is the wide ranging mood board for the whole fujoshi thing — from K/S to AO3 to Kindles to Check Please to SuBLime — that I’ve waited for my whole life. Jung – a gay man – got some pushback from fans but I think this piece explained a lot. Honestly, I can’t even find a key paragraph to quote. It’s the whole thing. Read it. 

§ Meanwhile, back at YouTube early video content producer Tim Shey looks at the evolution of the platform from wonky videos to its replacing studio entertainment eco-system:

It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment an era begins, but nearly fifteen years ago to the day, on March 7, 2011, YouTube used the word “creator” in an official announcement on its blog for the first time,1 in a post that hard-launched the creator era. I’ve been thinking about that the past few weeks— about what that time was like, and all we hoped to accomplish back then, and where we might be going now. More than anything, I’ve been thinking that YouTube is now in its studio era, and while creators are still at the center, what it takes to compete at the highest levels on YouTube has been evolving and changing for a while, and seems to have crossed a threshold in the past couple years.

…

The shape that most new media brands are taking, fifteen years later—a highly profitable YouTube channel, reaching millions with regularly programmed, television quality (or better) shows; diversified revenue streams including sponsorships, memberships, licensing, and merch; multi-platform presence including podcasts and newsletters—was something we envisioned back then when we made those investments. The idea of a pure-play studio creating this kind of business wasn’t even a new idea—that’s what Next New was, as well as Maker Studios, Machinima, College Humor, and many others—we were all just a bit early, making digital pennies instead of dollars while we waited for the audiences to get big enough, and the sponsors to come. But as my partner Fred would like to say, those pennies would soon be nickels, and then quarters, and then the dollars would come.

§ Meanwhile, back in the actual world, are comic cons evolving? This post from Marie Enger about the costs of exhibiting at cons got a lot of reposts and similar comments:

It’s likely the artist behind that ECCC table paid at least$450 for the table$500-700 for lodging $150 (+) for food/drink$300+ for merch. The financial risk is real! Be nice to the creators behind the table and even if you don’t got the $$ to spare, a kind word goes a long way.

— Marie Enger – Wandering Around C2E2, talking about comics Labor (@soengery.bsky.social) 2026-03-05T14:59:37.022Z

It’s likely the artist behind that ECCC table paid at least

$450 for the table
$500-700 for lodging 
$150 (+) for food/drink
$300+ for merch. 

The financial risk is real! Be nice to the creators behind the table and even if you don’t got the $$ to spare, a kind word goes a long way.

Many comics creators chimed in adding that it’s just too expensive for them to set up at shows these days. And that is a very real economic factor. Publishers don’t go to any shows besides NYCC and SDCC because it’s jsut too expensive and there is no real payoff. Without publishers and creators we have very little comic in the con. Next weekend will see a nationwide comic con explosion with MoCCA in NYC, C2E2 in Chicago, Planet Comicon in Kansas City and WonderCon in Anaheim. I’ll be in Anaheim, but I’ll be checking how how all four shows roll out. 

§ And for those who DO go to cons, Eileen Gonzalez at Book Riot has tips for attending:

Tip #1: Be Prepared for Crowds

I know you think you know this. I thought I knew this. I’ve been to Disney World. I can handle crowds. No problem.

Friends, I was not prepared.

I spent a significant portion of my day shuffling along shoulder to shoulder in the midst of a veritable hoard of geeks. It was constantly noisy: I practically had to shout to be heard by the people I was there with, despite them being right next to me. Every booth was besieged by fans checking out the merchandise or burrowing through longboxes like squirrels in search of an acorn. There were long lines for everything.

§ A quick one: PW looks at how IPG has stepped up in the Post Diamond world. 

But another, more surprising entrant looking to fill the Diamond-shaped void is Independent Publishers Group (IPG) which, until now, had not forayed into the comics space. IPG has quickly signed a slew of new partnerships with small graphic novel publishers who were cut out of the Lunar deal or otherwise lost in the fray.

According to CEO Joe Matthews, IPG has so far racked up nine client comic publishers, including graphic novel and RPG publishers, and has kickstarted relationships with 350 comic stores since launching its direct-market program in September 2025. IPG will also distribute graphic novels to library channels, as it does in other formats.

§ Finally we can answer this question I posed five years ago: Why is Brian K. Vaughan in the credits to Dune? At the time I pointed out he had a deal at Legendary Pictures, which produces the Dune films, but now, he has a co-writing credit on Dune 3. This prompted many news outlets to use AI to analyze why his work on Saga, Y the Last Man and Private Eye might prepare him to write a planet-spanning tale of revolution and politics. One article even suggested this could be BKV’s BIG BREAK IN HOLLYWOOD. I’m pretty sure that was Lost, but okay. Anyway, director Denis Villeneuve has said there will many plot lines in the film, and no one does that better than BKV. As i’ve said a few times this week, the spice must flow!